Clouds without Rain Read Free Page B

In a corner behind an icebox, another daughter was scrubbing the floor with a damp towel wrapped around a pine two-by-two board, switching from one side of the board to another as each became soiled.
    Cal asked again for Andy Weaver, and the teenager said, “On the back porch.”
    Cal pushed through the heavy walnut door the first girl had indicated and entered a large dining room with several china cupboards and a round dinner table with ten chairs and one highchair. The only other door in this room led to a moderately sized sewing room, where three women—eldest daughter, grandmother, and mother, Cal guessed—sat leaning over a square wooden quilting frame. As they took small stitches in the ornate patchwork of cloth, only the mother looked up from her work.
    Cal asked, “Andy Weaver?” and she wordlessly nodded toward a screened door behind her.
    The door led Cal to a long concrete walkway connecting a Daadihaus to the main house, and on the porch of the little house, Cal found Bishop Andy R. Weaver sitting on a three-legged stool, mending tack, or rather holding it in one hand while he gazed, lost in thought, at a distant fence line.
    Weaver’s hair was pushed down over his ears by a battered straw hat. His shirt was dark blue, and his trousers were of denim. His long gray beard fell loose and uncombed on his chest, and he was shaved around the mouth, though some stubble was evident.
    “Andy,” Cal said, and approached. Weaver turned, saw Cal, and rose to offer his hand happily, saying, “You’re white, Cal,” indicating Troyer’s shoulder-length hair and full beard.
    “Been a long time, Andy,” Cal said. He shook his old friend’s hand and added, “So it’s Bishop Andy, now.”
    Weaver nodded self-consciously and said, “Thought I had gone to Pennsylvania for keeps, Cal. Take a walk?”
    Cal retrieved his shoes, and the two strolled through a swinging iron gate and along a rusted fence bordering a sunbaked field of hay. The bishop’s old straw hat was broken open at the front of the crown where he had pinched it so often, putting it on and taking it off. His vest hung limply over rounded shoulders. The leather of his boots was split and scuffed, encrusted with patches of dried manure.
    Cal drew a pair of sunglasses from his shirt pocket and put them on. After they had walked a ways, he said, “What made you decide to come home, Andy?”
    Weaver stopped, stuck his thumbs in his suspenders, and studied his boots. He kicked at some dirt, looked at Cal somewhat ambiguously and said, “They’ve all promised to change.”
    “And your brother?”
    “So, you remember.”
    Cal nodded and Weaver said, “He’s been out for a long time, now.”
    “Bishop Yoder kicked him out?”
    “Should have,” Weaver said, passing judgment.
    Cal’s fingers toyed with his long white beard. He stood thinking silently in the bright sun about the old days, about the crusade against cults that he and Weaver had organized some years ago. After a moment, Cal shook loose from his memories and asked, “They’re all going back to Old Order?”
    Weaver shrugged unhappily. “Not all. I lost one family already.”
    “I doubt you’ll lose that many more.”
    “The rest are waiting to see how I’ll rule on various things.”
    “They asked you back to help after Yoder died?”
    “The most of them did. A few holdouts, I suppose,” Weaver said.
    “But you’re bishop now. They’ll align themselves under your authority.”
    “People here have gotten too far along into modern ways, Cal. Getting back to Old Order will be hard.”
    “They all knew you well enough before you quit for Pennsylvania. Wouldn’t have asked you back if they didn’t mostly want Old Order.”
    “You don’t know how far gone Yoder let the District get.”
    Cal reached down, plucked some dry alfalfa, and stuck it between his teeth, waiting for Weaver to continue.
    “Think about it, Cal. We’ve got at least three neighborhood phone booths out by